OCTOBER 07, 2010What to Look For
When Choosing a Sports Agent / How to Choose a
Sports Agent

I’ve been a
sports agent for a long time.Back in the early 1990’s I
cut a deal with the iconic New York City skate shop -Blades
– which was in its infancy, to sponsor a professional
inline skating team.I was on the team, so it
was very much a self serving acquisition, but
unbeknownst to me at the time, it launched my career in
the sports agent world.Since then I’ve represented
many athletes, and cut countless sponsorship and
endorsement deals, mostly specializing in Olympic sports
but along the way there aren’t too many sports that I
haven’t touched in some way.During this time I’ve had
hundreds of conversations (literally) with athletes
ranging from top NFL quarterbacks to lawn mower racing
and beach tennisplayers (yes, I’m serious)
about becoming their sports agent.From those conversations,
here are a handful of things to think about when
choosing a sports agent.

1.
Sports Contract Agent or Sports
Marketing Agent?

A sports contract agent is going to
cut your deal to play in the NFL, NBA, NHL etc. so they
need to have a deep knowledge of/experience with the
game.A
sports marketing agent is going to create sponsorships
and endorsement deals.Which are you looking for?

Many contract agents also
claim to be marketing agents but my experience is that
not many are good at both.Really this is a logical, dollars/cents issue.A contract agent will make a percentage of a pro
player contract deal.These are typically lucrative deals, so the agent
is making a percentage of that, which translates to a
nice junk of change.That agent might then, and often does, want to do
the players shoe deal, which is typically a players
biggest endorsement contract/sponsorship.The dollar amount for a shoe deal is usually much
less than the player contract, but, while never actually
easy, this is the low-hanging-fruit of sponsorship deals
to be had.With the player contract and shoe deal in place, after
that the subsequent endorsements deals get harder to
find and are most often for less money.For the contract agent, the more logical place to
put his/her time and effort is into finding the next
star player to represent so as to cut that player’s
contract deal.The
bottom line is that they make more money doing player
deals than they do chasing sponsorship deals.

The sports marketing
agent’s expertise is specifically in creating
sponsorship and endorsement deals.These sponsorships will be either endemic
(specifically related to the athlete’s particular sport)
or non-endemic (endorsements with companies whose
products/services have nothing to do with the sport).I believe this latter category is the true muster
of a sports marketing agent as quite frankly, these
deals are harder to get.I’ll talk more about endemic vs. non-endemic in a
future post. For
now, understanding what different types of agents do is
a starting point and because of these differences it’s
not at all uncommon for athletes to have a contract
agent and a marketing agent.Know what you’re looking for.

NEXT ENTRY: Endemic vs. Non-endemic deals
(not yet posted)

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senior level sports marketing executives
with over sixty years of combined
experience in corporate brand strategies
& activation, media/public relations &
corporate social responsibility and
athlete representation & management. We
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provide our clients unparalleled depth
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